Design
The Alienware 15 is a sleek looking gaming machine with its trademark alien head standing out like a beacon, giving passerbys no chance to mistake this laptop as any other brand other than Alienware. Despite it being a gaming laptop, it still looks classy enough to be used at work, but should you use the AlienFX, you can still customize rainbow colored lighting if you like that kind of thing.
This laptop sports multiple vents located on the back, front and even the under of it. Despite all that vents and the number of ports all around the laptop – on the back and on both sides; the Alienware 15 is slimmer than its predecessors and weighs more than 3kg. It does not have an optical drive though, since the sides sports ports instead of external storage.
Display
The Alienware 15 is named such is due to the size of its display – 15.6-inch, with 1920x1080p on a non-reflective matte screen. A matte screen means there is a lack of reflections and although it is matte, the color reproduction is still great. You can upgrade it to a 4k touchscreen panel though, but I don’t really like touchscreen especially for gaming laptops since it doesn’t really make much difference but drains more battery. Viewing angles is also great on this machine where someone on the side can still view movies and games clearly.
Audio
The speakers on the Alienware 15 is located on the front, which makes the sound clear and loud. Since this machine utilizes Creative Sound Blaster processors for its audio, music and sounds are crisp and clear although you might need headphones to get surround sound effects.
Performance
Since it has an Intel Core i7-4710HQ Quad Core up to 3.5GHz with Turbo Boost, you can expect good performance and smooth rendering at 1080p in high settings. With an SSD to boot the machine and a 1TB for storage, the laptop boots up pretty quick and with very minimal bloatware, performance is even better.
Thermal Management
This laptop does get baking hot when playing games. Even with so many vents, using it on high performance – which is when playing games, gets your hands all hot and sweaty. The fans also gets pretty loud so you can either ignore it, or use headphones should it annoy you.
Battery Life
On normal desktop usage, the battery life is pretty decent, going for more than 5 hours. However, don’t expect it to last when playing games, just like any other gaming laptops.
